Dizzie superheroes
by TheCurlymop
Summary: AU: Lizzie Bennet and William Darcy as superheroes
1. Chapter 1 - Meeting

They meet on a rooftop. Masks are worn. Both chasing the same guy, a fiendishly tricky bank robber, they tacitly combine forces, and explosive combination which brings their particular target to his knees. As he catches his breath, he suddenly notices how attractive his companion is. Even with her mask on, her eyes dance enticingly and her face is undoubtedly very pretty. He hasn't seen her around before and in spite of the fact that they are anonymous supers on the roof of a seven floor bank, he has the sudden urge to ask her out. He wants to know who she is really, something he'll probably never know. The sirens are their cue to leave, ever the gentleman, he lets her go first. She skips lightly away from him, as she springs to the next building, he hears a jaunty 'Bye Roboman, I'm – '

Behind him the robber sighs. 'She's a stunner isn't she… do you think I'm in with a chance?'

As he leaves, he knocks Wickham just hard enough for him to hit his head on the useful metal pole he is handcuffed to. With any luck, he won't be re-appearing into society any time soon.

They meet again that weekend. Her dancing eyes widen as she waits to take their order. She hates her summer job but today it has its advantages. His jaw is firm, the face handsome and somehow familiar. A glance takes in how wide his shoulders are and her mind flits back to Roboman and their rooftop encounter. She'd read about him and heard he was handsome even with the mask, but if what she suspected was true, he was handsome in reality too.

He ordered his drink and then looked up at the waitress in obedience to Fitz's signals. Red hair, small frame, slim flexible looking limbs. And a pair of eyes so fine they put the poetic part of his mind to thinking of sapphires. The memory of her was etched onto his brain and probably Fitz's as well, though he didn't know all of the circumstances of their encounter. It was her. And he didn't think she knew him.

She swallowed uncomfortably, both guys were now staring at her and she wondered if he'd recognised her. His famously unemotional face – reputedly the reason he'd gained his name - said nothing and with a start, she realised she hadn't written his order down. The awkwardness of her failure as a waitress broke any spell they'd been under and she fled, gracefully he noticed, seeming to bounce between the tables. The name on her badge sticks in his mind and he says it softly to himself 'Lizzie.'

Another rooftop encounter some months later. He bites back the comments he always wants to make – 'do you come here often' and 'we really must stop meeting like this.'

While he thinks that Lizzie the waitress would hide a smile and sway away from him, he would expect a slightly more violent reaction from his bouncy superheroine enchantress. Any flirtatious comments from criminals and supers alike are met with a glare from those eyes and so he hasn't even tried before now. He know the grapevine had been buzzing about Roboman's new lady and everyone's all the more curious because her name is unknown. As a human, she is Lizzie, but as a hero, she appears to be nameless.

The chase had been hard work and he can sense that her springing strides have less power in them than a few hours ago. She turns to leave and something in him snaps. He takes off the mask and calls her name, 'Lizzie.'

She turns, stares, and is somehow in his arms. They stand together on their rooftop, silhouetted against the glow of the approaching dawn.


	2. Chapter 2 - Meeting the family

Her family don't know about her 'super status'. That is something that she pushes into him very early on. It starts with a throwaway comment about being unable to talk about their adventures to anyone else, but soon he learns that she is lonely in her power. For him, becoming super had given him a greater sense of himself, he was stranger literally and mentally and just knowing he had powers, even if he couldn't use them in day to day life, gave him confidence which replaced his former alienating arrogance. For Lizzie, it had been the opposite. She was close to her sisters and best friend and having to conceal her power, even before she'd started to use it, had driven a wedge between them. She felt guilty because she was concealing something, they knew she was concealing something and were first offended and then worried by her silence.

He supposed it explained her reluctance to talk to him when they had first met. She had been bound to silence for so long and suddenly there was someone who she could tell everything to. He remembered the first time she had told him anything personal – he had felt a shot of warmth shoot through his body because he knew something about her. He can't even think of what it was, probably a comment about her favourite colour, but he felt so privileged to be let into her complex and private world.

Now they were on their way to meet her family, six months after their official first meeting in the café and he was under strict instructions to keep anything super-related under wraps. It was going to be difficult, mostly because it was such a big part of his life with Lizzie and a part of his life in general. He hated the stigma attached to being a super and he hated having to guard his identity – by nature he was an honest person and he knew Lizzie was too. He just hoped that having a boyfriend who could share and understand her secret would help.

She'd warned him about her family, told him detailed horror stories, but nothing could have prepared him for the terror that is her mother. She falls on him as soon as he walks through the door behind Lizzie. Sparing no time to greet her middle daughter, she clasps his arm to her generous bosom, pulling him down uncomfortably close to her face as she shrieks delightedly about 'how handsome and desirable' he is. Shaken by this encounter, he only gets through the introductions because of his well-trained manners. Later Lizzie tells him she was amazed he hadn't turned tail and run, especially when her younger sister grasped him in a manner reminiscent of her mother and let out a loud squeal of approval at the size of his biceps.

Being referred to as a 'man-cake' is a new experience. He is aware that he is considered good-looking, but Lydia's terminology alarms him. She is a strange mixture of teenager and adult, hyper aware of any sexual content in a conversation but immaturely amused by it at the same time. He is reminded of his sister around the age of 15, before she'd had to grow up, when she'd still believed in romance. Lizzie's older sister seems nice though. She smiles a lot and is very pretty. Lizzie told him that it was Jane who she'd missed seeing the most and the tow do seem very close for siblings who haven't seen each other for about a year. He knows that Lizzie writes emails to Jane and sure enough, Jane is the most clued up on how they supposedly met, which is, of course, the topic of conversation at the supper table that evening.

Lydia starts it after an intolerably long discourse from her mother on how glad she is that Lizzie has finally brought someone home. To hear her talk, you would think that Lizzie has never had a boyfriend before. Pondering this, he almost misses Lydia's opening question.

'So… Will, how did you two meet?'

He glances at Lizzie. In their rehearsals of the story, she'd always put most of the details in, he couldn't remember enough to make it convincing.

'Well, we met at the café where Lizzie was working. I… umm,' at this point his voice softens involuntarily and the family lean closer, all except Lizzie who frantically wonders why he is diverting from the script.

'I noticed her immediately, even before she came to our table. Her hair and her smile and,' he paused and smiled himself 'She laughed. That was the first thing I noticed.'

'Oookay,' Lizzie laughed uneasily, 'So anyway, he asked me out and I said yes.'

At this point Jane interjects. 'But that wasn't what you told me. You said that there was this man who kept asking you out and you kept saying no. Then one day you said yes for no reason at all. That was when I-'

Lizzie cut Jane off. 'Well yes, there was a little bit more to it but you don't need to know all the details. Mum, what's for desert?'

She is trying to distract everyone frantically and it almost works. Lydia had lost interest anyway and was mucking around on her phone, Mrs Bennet merely looked annoyed at the idea that Lizzie had ever rejected a man's advances and Mr Bennet had only looked interested when he had asked Lizzie if she was happy. He seemed to be in his own little world most of the time and Will couldn't blame him, his wife must be difficult to cope with at the best of times. Only Jane looks a little bothered about being cut off and he wonders what she was going to say. Perhaps he'll be able to weasel it out of Lizzie later.


	3. Chapter 3 - Escape

They escape from the house on the pretext of a walk. They keep up the act of normality for a few minutes, both hyper aware of Lydia watching shamelessly from the front porch. Their clasped hands vibrate with the need to run and jump and stretch their confined muscles. The strain of being human has taken its toll and now they are barely capable of keeping the energy in. Both had forgotten, used as they are to a lot of exercise, how difficult it would be to remain still. They hadn't gone out the night before they'd left and then they'd been trapped in the car for the journey. The need to run outweighed any worry that they might be seen so that as they rounded the corner they began to run, Will taking two heavy strides to each of Lizzie's graceful leaps. They come to a park and without speaking they cross the road to enter and take advantage of the more open space. They do not speak, enjoying the calm of the evening and the opportunity to escape the real world for a while. Will laughs as Lizzie begins to twist and turn, weaving through a few trees and leaping to grab branches and swing, purely, he thinks, because she can. She is a child in that moment, relishing her strength and agility, spinning through the air as he runs at her side. Where she is speed and agility, he is strength and stamina. He thinks that they make a good team, their strengths and weaknesses complementing each other.

He loves seeing her enjoy her abilities when he knows that for so long she had hidden them.

He loves that he knows that about her.

He loves her.

This sudden realisation, coming to him in the meditation of a slow jog, ruins the rhythm of his breathing completely and he finds himself with a stitch. He falters and comes to a stop, watching her bound joyfully away as she did that first night on the rooftop.

Walking back, the edge taken off their energy, he ponders this new information. In the back of his mind, he knew he loved her but it hadn't come to his attention quite until this moment. Now he was aware of it, he could feel emotion bubbling up inside him just watching her skip along beside her. He knew that a touch of her hand was enough to get his heart racing but until now he'd been unaware of it being any more than attraction. He loved her. He sighed, now all he had to do was tell her.

She could tell he was thinking about something. He'd got that pensive over-thinking face on and she just knew that it would be impossible to get him to tell her unless he was completely comfortable and sure they weren't going to be interrupted. It was going to take some manoeuvring but she was fairly sure that Jane and Lydia both owed her favours. As they entered the house, she sent Will upstairs to shower and went in search of her sisters. She needed to be safe from parental and sibling interruptions for the rest of the evening it she was going to find out what was going on behind Will's famously guarded expression.


End file.
